The Mantle
by hunter 139
Summary: A group of Forerunners attempt to find the origins of the Flood, but discover that the spread of the parasite is even worse than they imagined. This is my first story, so please be kind. Now has an Epilogue/sequel "Gods and Demons". Rated T because I'm paranoid.


**Ok this is actually a short story I wrote for one of my classes in college. It's been edited from the original version somewhat, and is technically a crossover story. I'll likely end up posting the epilogue as a separate story which will explain how it's a crossover (though I can't guarantee it'll make a whole lot of sense). Anyway, enough of my rambling. Enjoy.**

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><p>"Initiate the self-destruct sequence!" The Overseer ordered, and then he turned to his crew as they saluted him,<p>

"It has been an honor."

The station exploded with a supernova sized explosion, annihilating the converging Flood fleet, leaving nothing but dust.

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><p>"Guardianship for all living things lies with those whose evolution is most complete. The Mantle of Responsibility shelters all."<p>

This belief had been ingrained into every Forerunner since they were old enough to think, and it was inseparable from their society. Passed down from the Precursors before them, the Forerunners had followed these teachings to best of their abilities, but in these dark times, they could not do so with the Flood consuming every living being in the galaxy and turning them against their protectors.

On worlds all over the Milky Way, beings of all size and species looked up to the sky. The stars glowed all around them; the sheer distance of space gave the illusion of peace, hiding the galaxy-spanning war from their eyes… until the monstrous parasites descended on their worlds, infecting everything they touched.

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><p>The Overseer had always followed the teachings of the Mantle with the same zeal of the rest of the Warrior-Servant rate. Born as Shadow-over-Dawn, he had renounced his name and had been gifted the title 'Overseer' by the Didact, the leader of the Warrior-Servant Rate. He had been given this name because he was an effective taskmaster for inter-rate projects between the Warrior-Servants and the Lifeworkers.<p>

He had been taught since birth, that the Precursors had entrusted the Mantle of Responsibility to the Forerunners and was their sworn duty to protect all other species from all known threats to them, either from other species or themselves. The Overseer remembered all the teachings of the Mantle, which was proclaimed to be gifted onto the Forerunners alone.

When humanity claimed that the Mantle had actually been gifted to them, the Overseer found the very concept to be insulting;

"Those lowly primitives, as the keepers of the Mantle?" He had thought. "What a joke."

When humanity started attacking Forerunner worlds, the Overseer was quite happy to follow the Warrior-Servant rate into war to push them back. His proudest moment during that conflict was the battle for Erde-Tyrene [now known as planet Earth], as he had been in command of conquering humanity's homeworld and after the war, was responsible for overseeing the forced devolution of the humans there.

It was during this time that he had first worked alongside the Lifeworker rate, pacifying human stragglers so the science teams could work, which was a task he had most enjoyed, putting those animals in their place with ruthless efficiency. It was likely because of this, his devout following of the Mantle's teachings, and his ability to keep secrets, that he was contacted by a secret group of Forerunners for a secret mission of great importance. After checking their credentials and finding that they were valid, he chose to accept and was transferred to his new post with a new mission:

Find out where the Flood had come from outside the galaxy.

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><p>The Overseer, clad in full armor, looked over the command room of the tiny (2 kilometers in diameter) space station crewed by a select few Forerunners and ancillas for this special purpose.<p>

The station had all the same angular and gleaming silver aesthetic that was the trademark of most Forerunner architecture, with hard light making up much of the décor around them. According to the head scientist onboard, the station was equipped with a cloaking device, automated defense cannons, a standard splipspace teleportation grid, and multiple types of Sentinel robots for maintenance and security purposes.

A fairly well equipped station, albeit a bit sparse on crew by Warrior standards, but the most impressive feature, according to the Lifeworkers, was the experimental teleportation device that could be used to send specially designed probes across galactic distances, with a theoretically unlimited range.

One of these probes was being prepared right now, to be launched to the coordinates given by their benefactors. When the scientists questioned how they got these coordinates, the benefactors claimed that the information had been given to them by the Domain. The Overseer could tell they were omitting some information, which was fine with him: they were here to do a job, and so they would. If they could find where the Flood had come from, they might be able to find a way to stop it.

As the crew worked, he thought about his previous work as a Warrior-Servant. He recalled his previous encounters with the Flood; a horrific parasitical species that infected any life it came across, turning them into walking corpses, but they retained their knowledge, enabling the infected life forms to use weapons and pilot spaceships. This allowed them to spread all over the galaxy and infect every living being they came across.

He recalled fighting the Flood on the ground, on some nameless world in the galaxy; he had led a tireless defense against the Flood forms and any Forerunner who was thought to be infected. There was no luxury for second guessing, he had simply vaporized any being he came across that looked even remotely infected. At first, his defense seemed to be going well, but he remembered the horror he felt when the Flood started turning their own weapons against them. The battle had quickly turned into a rout, in which few Warriors escaped with their lives.

When the Overseer learned that the Flood had already come to the galaxy a thousand years ago, but had actually been pushed back by humanity, he gained a grudging degree of respect for their species.

"If those so-called animals could expel those parasites, they may actually deserve to hold the Mantle," he admitted. "How can we be worthy of the Precursor's teachings, when we were forced to abandon billions to the Flood, while we cowered and hid behind our own borders?"

His musings were interrupted by his ancilla, who informed him that the probe was prepared to launch. The Overseer sat down as a chair made of hard light appeared under him, and then he made a gesture causing a holographic console to appear in front of him.

Keying the communications device, he ordered the Huragok at the launching station to send probe through the teleportation device. Even though the device used technology that was much faster than the slipspace travel, it would still take several minutes for the probe to reach its destination and start transmitting images. The Overseer and his crew silently waited for it to arrive when a clear picture emerged on the main holoscreen.

And what they saw would haunt their minds forever.

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><p>A monstrosity loomed on the screen, an abomination against all life and reality.<p>

Where there should have been a vast of galaxy of stars, there was instead a mass of Flood biomass, a billion lightyears across. Trillions of Precursor artifacts were intertwined with the galaxy's flesh and massive tentacles of Precursor star roads covered in biomass were scattered all over its body, their writhing causing tears in reality and then proceeding to shut them again. A massive worm shaped head grew from the center of the galaxy, staring past the probe into the cosmos.

"By the Mantle" someone said, and it might have been the Overseer, as the crew was still in a state of horrified awe.

As if it had heard him, one of the tentacles flicked slightly, causing a tear in reality, transporting the probe into the galaxy itself, where more horrors awaited:

Stars and black holes had their energy siphoned and absorbed by the Precursor artifacts and Flood biomatter, only for them to be reconstituted and consumed again in a never-ending cycle. The same nightmare was happening to the creatures that lived there:

This abomination had created new species and recreated old ones to suffer in agony for eternity as food for the Flood. They had conquered several galaxies, but the Flood had changed this one into a massive body and was commanding and controlling all of their plans from here.

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><p>Suddenly the entity's voice filled their heads<p>

"Do not be afraid. I am peace. I am salvation."

It growled with sadistic mockery. Somehow it was speaking through the probe, and projecting its voice into their heads.

"What-What are you?" The Overseer asked, and the entity replied, in a mocking tone, dripping with sarcasm, "I am what you claim to follow. I am the Mantle of Responsibility."

Shocked silence fell over the bridge as the creature continued. "You claim to protect all other species, and yet you do not allow them to evolve." The entity said, "If they try to grow and prosper, you forcibly devolve them," it articulated, with the knowledge of what the Forerunners had done to humanity,

"You take over their worlds, use their resources for your own, and instead of allowing another species to take your place, you do everything you can to ensure your supremacy." The entity narrated, then a tentacle gestured to the nightmare on the viewscreen,

"This is what your belief has led to; the Mantle shelters all." It ended its speech with a cruelly ironic tone.

Someone in the command room found their voice and responded angrily, "You are not the Mantle; you are a twisted abomination of the Precursor's legacy!"

There was silence for a moment, and then the creature started to laugh, with the voices of everyone the Flood had ever absorbed. This insane, diseased laughter lasted for several minutes, and when it finally stopped, no one on the station ever wanted to hear it again.

"You fools, we are not some parasite that you can cleanse from the stars," The Flood whispered, "We created the universe, we created life. We created you."

In horror, the Overseer realized the implications of what the creature was saying: this abomination, all of the Flood in the universe. They were the Precursors, the beings the Forerunners had worshipped as gods. And this thing clearly had the power and knowledge to back up that claim.

On the holoscreen, several tentacles wrapped themselves around the probe, obscuring the view of the camera.

"Our wrath… is at hand."

The tentacles tightened, crushing the probe and leaving an image of blackness on the main viewscreen.

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><p>The Overseer felt broken; everything he believed in, everything the Forerunners had been told from birth was a lie. He wanted to give up and succumb to despair. But a millennium of training took over.<p>

"We have to tell our benefactors," the Overseer said. "Upload all that we have discovered to them," He told the head ancilla, who nodded and disappeared into the communication systems in order to that. The Overseer looked around the command room, into the faces of the Warriors and Lifeworkers around him. Like him, they all looked defeated. He knew that they all felt broken inside, and hoped he had the right words to pull them through this.

They all looked to him as he said "I know how you all feel right now. This is nothing we will ever forget, and we should not. The Mantle was our guide for millions of years, and the Precursors gave it to us. Whatever happened in the past changed them and twisted their beliefs, corrupting them and turning them into monsters. But we will not give in to despair!" The crew's spirits and his own began to lift and he continued,

"The Mantle is ours and we will not forget what the Precursors taught us, not even if they have forgotten it themselves! All life is under our care and guardianship, and if we do not find a way to stop the Flood, then someone else will. But we must ensure that life will survive, and ensure that the Flood will be defeated. The Forerunners will find a way, even if it costs us our species. And life will go on because they will defeat the Flood. The Mantle shelters all!" He finished the speech to the cheers of his crew, and once the applause died down, they started returning to their stations.

"Things are starting to look up," the Overseer thought.

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><p>Then the alarms started blaring.<p>

"Status report." The Overseer asked.

"One hundred Flood infested Forerunner ships have exited slipspace and are closing in on our position." The sensor officer shouted.

This was bad news, for this station was secret from the Forerunner ecumene, and stealth was its main defense.

"Battle stations!" The Overseer yelled,

"We must protect the station at all costs."

The automated defense systems activated, as turrets made of hard light started spewing energy bolts of hard light and plasma at the attacking Flood ships. A 50 kilometer long Fortress-class vessel responded by launching automated drone fighters and weapon-ships, targeting the defense turrets and destroying them in short order. The Flood ships made a break for the station and started cutting their way in.

"We've been boarded!" Someone shouted, as holoscreens appeared all over the bridge, showcasing security video of Flood forms running rampant throughout the station.

"How much longer until the upload is finished?" the Overseer asked, and just as he did, the head ancilla reappeared.

"Upload complete," the ancilla said as it returned.

Warriors had already started staging a defense against the Flood, rallying Sentinels to push them back, but they knew it was a hopeless effort. The fleet bearing down on them was too large and their outer defenses had been annihilated. If the Flood got their claws onto the teleportation device, it would mean the end of all life in the universe.

There was no way the Forerunners could win this fight, but the Overseer knew what needed to be done now…

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><p><strong>Well, what did you think?<strong>

**I'm horrible at writing dialogue, so I apologise if it sounds unnatural.**

**Reviews are welcome, though flames will be ignored.**


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